Fluidity of identity is a constant journey as a person and as an artist.  Paradoxically, it is the root that sustains my interest in portraiture.  The societal concept of identity is also continually in flux, as the definitions of gender, race, age, geography, culture and socioeconomic status are mixed, blurred, inverted and dismantled.   

 

Portraiture has significant meaning within the context of art history.  It is indubitably a record of the growth of humanity and our movement through time.  One of the most imperative functions of portraiture is to increase our capacity for understanding and empathy.  A portrait allows us to search through another’s face and look longer than would be normally, socially acceptable.  This silent conversation we have with ourselves reflects our own assumptions and biases as well as how we understand each other's history.  It is a psychological process that can hold the potential for emotional awareness and self directed evolution, one portrait at a time.  

 

Through the interpretation of the human form and individual likeness, I am interested in participating in the dissection of the simplistic, externally determined identity and increasing the awareness of the beautifully complex, internally determined one.   The path to such conversations is laid out for me in each image, through the process of unraveling my own definitions of technique, material and form within the genres of painting, drawing and printmaking. 

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